detasseling corn – Go Retire Psychiatrist

The other day we walked the Terry Trueblood Trail (when do we not do that?) and saw interesting sights. I finally got a video clip of a goldfinch! And a male northern cardinal either sang to us or cussed us out. It was hard to tell.

It was a scorcher out there. We started out looking for a walking trail a guy gave us directions to a week or so ago. It’s a great place for birding. We found it, but here was no parking anywhere close. He told us that we could park in a farmer’s field, but we saw the farmer out there and decided not to chance it.

While we were out doing that, we drove by a cornfield, which really impressed Sena because we could drive right up close to it. She’s never detasseled corn. I have and I don’t think she missed anything. I walked the rows with fellow detasselers and we yanked them. We were in rows right next to each other. We could hear each other collapse from time to time from exhaustion. When you pulled the tassels out, they sort of squeaked. You could hear us: Squeak, squeak, squeak, thud.

On the other hand, we had a pretty good day birding out at Trueblood. I got a better video clip of a dickcissel. We saw a couple of geese scare a turtle off a rock in Sand Lake. We didn’t notice it at the time, but saw it on the video clip after we got home (which is still the hotel, by the way).

We saw several dickcissels. We still don’t think they sound like they’re singing “dick, dick, dick.” I think that’s a load of squeak, squeak, squeak. They are pretty birds, though.

We tried The Daily Crave Spicy Sriracha Lentil Chips and they’re pretty good. Extraterrestrials like the snacks and are apparently interested in cutting a deal with Jared Edy, who I think owns the stores. They want a piece of the action. They are bringing satchels of cash to the table along with proposals to cease and desist corn tassel abductions, which are old-fashioned in any case.

Their history of the corn tassel controversy is complicated. It’s based on the aliens’ misunderstanding of detasseling. In their corner of a galaxy far, far away, corn tassels are alive and kept as pets. They think they are rescuing the tassels by abducting them. They think walking corn fields to detassel corn, which involves yanking out the tassels at the top of the plant, amounts to cruelty to animals.

Time for the short story about detasseling from an Iowan who has done it. The tassel is the male part of the corn plant. It pollinates the corn ears, which are female parts. To make corn hybrids, farmers and seed companies must cross pollinate the corn. To make sure the right pollen from one type of corn gets to another, they must hire hundreds of people (often college students) to detassel the corn which isn’t earmarked (get it?) for cross-pollination.

I’ve done detasseling and it’s one heck of a chore. At the end of the day, my hands and arms were so sore I could barely lift them. I was exhausted, but when I tried to close my eyes at night, all I saw were endless acres of corn.

It turns out that careful explanations of what detasseling corn is all about on this planet cleared this up for aliens.

There are many stores across the country selling The Daily Crave chips. Several are in Iowa, mainly in the Des Moines area. That may be why some Iowans occasionally see UFOs.